Ancient Fantasies Eternal
by The Exile
Summary: Ancient Daedala wakes up on the Fallen Arm with no memory and no connection to the Mechonis. He finds himself hunted down by Egil until Avalanche Abaasy recruits him. As the only Mechon Sage, his task is to rescue the remaining Uniques on the Mechonis before they get caught up in the next great war. Written for Small Fandoms Bang 03.
1. Chapter 1

An aeon passed. For long centuries, far enough in the past that everyone who was still alive and had been present at the time had forgotten it had ever happened, their minds on more urgent matters, all was silent. The broken giant lay motionless on the sand, as seemingly lifeless as the driftwood brought in by waves that lapped incessantly against the shore of the Fallen Arm. Its inhabitants no more expected it to move than they expected the gigantic severed limb that was their home to stand up on its hand and start moving on its own. As far as they could tell, they were one and the same, and the machine had died the day the world-Titan it served had lost its limb. It was ignored as something that was neither a threat nor a resource. For some reason – maybe an oddity that kept the inhabitants from wanting to explore it too closely – the animals also gave it a wide berth. No Krabbles sheltered underneath it, no Pterixes made their nests on top of it, even the Bunnits hadn't tried to chew through its cables even once.

Then, in response to an unspoken signal from one of the few minds vaster and more patient than itself, a single light on the metal frame flickered red for a few seconds, then stabilised, then went green. A shrill beep followed. A cog began to whirr, shuddering and creaking at first, sputtering where it had been clogged up with sand and rust and congealed ether that had begun to crystallise again. It had been so long since these mechanisms had last moved, they had almost forgotten how, so that they only responded very slowly and after much thought, even when the signals from the other systems reached them, the news that they were to be reactivated, to live again. Soon, enough of the cogs and pistons began to move at once, their system lights green and the alert noises more animated, that the machine itself began to rise. It tested its limbs one at a time, trembling from the effort. Grabbing hold of a nearby jutting piece of metal for support, it managed to haul itself to its feet. It stood there, leaning on the wreckage around it, while it came to terms with its own existence and familiarised itself with its own vital systems and how they worked.

It was an efficient machine, it discovered, and it repaired quickly, once its self-maintenance systems had been brought back online. First it staggered towards the beach and reached out probes into the water and into the ground, searching for Ether it could use as fuel. Green light began to wash over it and its dents and tears were cleaned and sealed over, rust scoured away, loose cogs put back into place, frayed cables strengthened. Errors in its software also corrected themselves, corrupted files recovered, malicious code removed, its memory defragmented, and with every sector regained, small recollections returned to it. It once again knew who it was. It remembered why it had been created and what it was capable of doing.

His name was Daedala. He was a Mechon, one of the first ever manufactured. He had been the first fully working prototype, to be monitored as a test before mass production began. His duty was to defend the Mechonis and its people, particularly from a possible security threat identified by Miqol. The future of the Mechon series, its popularity or discontinuation, depended on his success or failure.

Unfortunately for Daedala, what he knew still didn't make any sense in context. When he looked around, he could see nothing that matched his station just above Agniratha, or even the Mechonis at all, and a lot of unfamiliar sights and sounds. Activating all his sensors revealed no epiphanies. While some of the shapes roughly matched some of the sectors of the area he patrolled before he was (unexpectedly and without the correct safety precautions - his motion sensors had recorded that he had experienced some kind of sudden, violent impact that fit the pattern of battle damage during a security incident) deactivated, they did not show signs of system activity, like that of a live, active machine such as himself. This did not make any sense. He knew he had received a signal to wake up from somewhere. It had to have been a powerful signal, as he knew he had been very severely damaged when he was forced to shut down, and a weak signal would not have reached his emergency communications channel that only transmitted on the highest security level, only for Miqol and Egil and maybe the core of the Mechonis itself, if it really wanted to contact him for some reason. Especially as, if his sensors were functioning correctly, the signal had to have been coming from somewhere far away. Apart from a few specks here and there, mostly completely unconnected nodes, many of which were direly in need of reconnection and repair, there were no others of his own kind around him.

When he returned to his manual overview and looked out over the sea, at the feet of the Colossus rising out of the waves, he realised that he was very far from home.

The sun began to rise. By the time he had finished his scans, Daedala was in complete working order. He stared up at the cliff face above him, spreading his metal wings and waiting for his gyro-motors to start up so that he could begin hovering. There was no use standing here and staring out at the ocean. If he wanted to know where he was, and how to get back to his post, he needed to begin exploring more thoroughly.

He whirled around at the sound of crackling static and scraping blades just as the red flashing crosses on his radar announced the presence of hostiles behind him. Neither his combat reflexes nor his tactical skill database had been corroded during his long sleep. The figures that burst out of the sand, although they outnumbered him ten to one, were much smaller, uncoordinated in their attack and motivated by malfunctions in their code that caused them to act erratically. Hoisting his laser cannon, he destroyed three of them with three shots before they could even move.

* * *

From their hiding place inside a section of pipeline that had long ago fallen from its mooring, the three Machina watched the battle that raged between the swarm of faulty scout Mechon and the lone giant. The party dared not move; they had already watched that laser rifle, as large as the tallest of the three Machina was tall, fire a searing arc of energy across the entire length of the beach, evaporating everything in its path that wasn't already dust. They had also seen the giant Mechon detect a Pterix on the top of the cliff, hiding inside a cave, and accurately shoot at it. It could easily locate the three of them, and if it decided they were a threat, they would probably be dead. They weren't sure what kind of movements the Mechon registered as hostile actions – it might fire at any fast-moving object within a certain range, for all they knew.

Their mission wasn't that urgent – they'd been sent out to find more Ether cylinders, but it wasn't like the stores had entirely run out. Besides, this new threat was a more urgent priority. It was up to any Machina who located a potential new danger to the Refuge to find out as much as they could about it without putting their lives at risk. This newly activated Mechon was almost certainly a threat – almost all Mechon would attack them on sight – but they needed to know in more detail what they were up against.

The Mechon was clearly more powerful than the regular lost, faulty rejects that roamed the Fallen Arm until their parts finally wore out. It had gone from complete immobility to moving so fast that its observers kept losing track of where it was, even with their own biomechanically augmented eyes and the surveillance scope that their leader carried around with him in case they discovered anything interesting. Every time it moved, another of its attackers exploded. Its fighting style reminded them more of one of the Face Mechon that commanded the armies of the Mechonis, except that they hadn't heard it talk in a human voice as the Faces did, and they had never heard of a Face simply lying there, discarded, for centuries. The Machina couldn't tell if its behaviour was purposeful or not, if it had any intelligence or if it just instinctively responded to any perceived attack against it. It was difficult to tell from only observing it in battle, and this stranger seemed to have alerted the presence of every hostile creature on the Arm. Stealth was not its strong point. The leader of the party wished that the thing would hurry up and finish destroying its enemies, so that they could see what it did next. They needed to know urgently if this thing was intelligent. If it was, then it would have been given orders to attack the Machina, and it would eventually find the Refuge. It might be able to resume command over the Mechon here, or signal to the rest of the Mechon to assist it in the attack. Even if it attacked on its own, it wasn't clear who would win, and they would definitely take some casualties. They would need to find somewhere to run and hide until all this boiled over, maybe fix up Junks so that it would move, then submerge it for a while. Mechon hated getting wet.

The last of the scout Mechon was cut in half by a laser claw as it tried to fly at the giant Mechon's face, a last ditch attack in the hope that its enemy wasn't as deadly in melee as they were at range. It exploded as its power core was sheared through. The giant went down into a crouch and looked around it as it swept the area with its sensors one last time. Then it hoisted its laser cannon onto its back, retracted its claw and stood up. Its jets whined into life and it sprang into the air, landing on the cliff face. Disciplined nerves barely held as the giant feet thumped close to their hiding place. They could hear its system alerts beep to themselves, the regular blips of the scanner as it methodically searched for something. Not a Machina, he presumed, or it would have found us by now. Had it been ordered to go on another mission, other than preventing the rebel Machina from leaving their exile? There was so much going on in the world beyond the Fallen Arm these days, so much to worry about, that it was easy to lose track of the situation.

Suddenly, the Mechon turned its head sharply around and stared directly at the leader. He froze in terror. Its ocular filters flashed red several times and it made a noise like an automatic door. It drew a laser rifle from nowhere and pointed it at the Machina. The barrel of the cannon wouldn't have fit inside the pipe. He could see the charge lights on the side of the rifle fill up in turn, the barrel glowing slightly. His muscles were tensed to begin running, even though it probably wouldn't have done him any good. The high probability of death held a macabre fascination and he felt he couldn't look away. Besides, something was wrong in the way the Mechon was reacting. Other Mechon generally shot straight away, and the giant hadn't shown any hesitation in killing its other enemies. Maybe it hadn't been ordered to. Maybe Egil was returning to his senses. The Machina doubted it.

The regular beeping and careful, quiet watching each other suddenly gave way to a long string of garbled static screeching and hissing that he knew to be Mechon yells of protest, usually voiced when they malfunctioned. It swung its rifle around and began to discharge laser bolts wildly at nothing, setting a tree on fire in the process. Still complaining at the top of its voice, it turned and ran full pelt across the junk wastes.

Or maybe, mused the Machina, it isn't in as good repair as I thought.


	2. Chapter 2

Egil resisted the urge to slam his fists down on the control panel as he watched the giant Mechon shrug off his command codes and run off in the opposite direction. It had been his fourth attempt to resume control over the rogue war machine. All four had been met with confusion then resistance, a mental battle of wills that resulted in Egil being thrown out of the Mechon's command interface as though he were a hacker or a virus. That was how he had been treated: as though he had no right to be commanding a Mechon, that his commands were some kind of anomalous signals. He, who had wrested command from Meyneth herself, and who could control the core of the Mechonis. He who rightfully controlled the entire Mechon army.

It was impossible for such a Mechon to even be able to refuse his orders. Any rogue Mechon would be acting completely out of control but would not have enough presence of mind to resist his attempts to regain control. As soon as he came back into contact with the Mechon and repaired its systems enough that it could actually carry out the order, it would immediately follow any instructions given to it. A functional Mechon would not have disobeyed his commands. They would have responded to Egil as though he were the Core of the Mechonis itself. Mechon were not like living soldiers, who needed to be placated and their morale kept up; they understood their exact place in the chain of command, worked ceaselessly, in perfect synchronisation and without complaint. A Machina, or maybe a Face Mechon whose consciousness had not been correctly reprogrammed, would show such imperfections. This Mechon, however, was neither. It was an old Mechon, one who had lived a long time before the first Face Mechon had ever existed. Neither was it controlled by a Machina. It was an entirely automated system. Such machines were not given that much authority in the ranks of Egil's Mechon army; they were too vulnerable to being attacked with the Monado, not to mention the benefits of a living, growing brain when adapting to sudden changes on the battlefield. While there existed some extremely powerful non-Face Mechon, they were generally used for simple but dangerous tasks, such as guarding important mental installations. This machine demonstrated outstanding levels of resistance to unauthorised command signals, something that would only have been programmed into a high-ranking officer. He could live with a high-ranking automated Mechon still existing, but the fact that a machine so high in authority could be made to not only refuse his orders, but forget that he even existed as an authority, was a major security threat that had to be dealt with immediately. It was made worse by the fact that, when he scanned the machine, it could not be found in his database at all, and its predicted power levels were above those of any of his Generals except possibly the Silver Face herself. It was unknown, immensely powerful and it wasn't on his side.

He turned to the Metal Face, a Face Mechon Commander whose name, in his former life, had been Mumkhar. Out of any of the Face Mechon, Egil trusted him the most, as he had been co-operative even before he was reprogrammed. However, he wasn't sure if he should be trusting anyone at all with the knowledge that his powerful allies could betray him and had already done so. He decided that he would prefer to think on the matter himself. One thing he could rely on the others to do, however, was to hunt down and kill the dangerous traitor.

"Metal and Jade," he called, watching them blink and wake from standby as soon as he spoke their names, "I have an urgent mission for you. I have tracked down a powerful rogue Mechon. While its logic circuits are far beyond repair, it is still capable of attacking us. I wish you to pre-emptively attack and destroy it. Its location has been marked on your map. I wish to stress that this Mechon is extremely dangerous, even to you two. You must not attempt to engage it alone, or fight recklessly against it, even though it is only one faulty Mechon. If you can, please try to salvage some kind of identifying markers on the Mechon, such as its record logs or at least a large enough part to reverse engineer, but do not attempt to capture the enemy alive."

After re-affirming their orders, the two Face Mechon disappeared up their launch tubes. While he hoped they would return victorious, he also secretly held out that he would come up with some idea of exactly what the enemy was before they simply destroyed it with their usual merciless efficiency. At the very least, he hoped they succeeded in bringing back something he could study. While he awaited the outcome, all he could really do was return to more hypothetical study, at least until he thought of something else that he could ask the information database about.

After a few minutes, a thought came to him; such an ancient Mechon would probably have existed before he assumed command, or even before he was created. If that was true, and it had been damaged and then abandoned, it may never have received the signals that identified him as being in command. If it only awakened recently, such a primitive and limited model may not be able to adapt to the new situation. Some such models were discontinued in favour of improved models later in history, so a legacy model would not have been recovered in battle. Still, such a powerful and high-ranking individual Mechon should have been considered an exception, as it would cost too much in resources to replace. It also begged the question of how such a Mechon, disconnected from the system, would have suddenly received a signal to wake up, and from where. He brought up the archives and keyed in the commands that would take him as far back through the Mechon factory records as possible. It hadn't occurred to him that discontinued legacy Mechons would be a thing that suddenly caused him trouble. Waging war was only another way of making history, and yet it wasn't the history itself he expected to sneak up on him from behind.

* * *

Daedala sat inside the cave in the cliff face and watched the surf pounding the rocks below. Inwardly, he waited for his security systems to calm down. Someone, a Machina he did not recognise and who was not Miqol, had tried to issue commands to him, commands that made no sense. When he walked past the Machina who were hiding in the pipes, the ones he had chosen to ignore for now as he was still scanning the area for threats and they were not threats, he had been given the order to attack them. His purpose was not to attack Machina (except when they tried to hack him), or any other inhabitant of the Mechonis. He was designed to protect the Mechonis from outside threats. He needed to report back to Miqol and explain that someone was trying to usurp his authority – someone very powerful, as they had almost succeeded. The trouble was, he still had no idea where Miqol was. He wasn't even on the Mechonis. While he now understood that there were other inhabitants of the Mechonis here, he had yet to find a Mechon that worked well enough to answer his simple questions and he couldn't risk going close enough to a Machina to ask them questions, in case it provided another opportunity for him to lose control.

During his scout of the small, dead object jutting out of the sea upon which he had fallen, he discovered that the Machina had a settlement where they existed in fairly large numbers, although nothing like they did in Agniratha when he used to guard the city. While it was clearly a large section of the Mechonis that had been detached, it had lain there for so long that life had begun growing, settled on its surface and even burrowed inside it, none of it native to the Mechonis. He remembered being told about the Bionis, and that it was dangerous. Miqol had expected the invasion, the first true war ever experienced by the inhabitants of the Mechonis, to come from the Bionis. Daedala didn't see any of this unstoppable plague of attackers he had been told to defend the Mechonis against, only small avians, four-legged predators and prey that roamed the plains, aquatic creatures and a lot of foliage. He wondered how long it had been since this section of the Mechonis had seen war.

Later, he decided on an aerial reconnaissance of the area. It looked like the Mechonis' left arm, but he could see the Mechonis in the distance with a perfectly intact left and right arm. It must have taken a long time to rebuild its entire left arm and a great disaster to remove its entire arm in the first place. He needed to return to the Mechonis immediately. There were too many gaps in his memory, too many weaknesses that could be exploited. He tried to calculate how far he would have to fly to reach the Mechonis, how long it would take, whether he could go that long without refuelling and whether he had the strength. There were other small structures in the sea, possibly more debris from the disaster, where he could rest and refuel. The Bionis was also fairly close, although that was too hazardous an option.

His thoughts were interrupted when his radar blipped to warn him of Mechon activity and he saw two figures appear on the skyline, then slowly glide towards the beach. After a few seconds, he saw a cloud of smaller Mechon trailing behind them, in organised formations rather than the pointless wandering of the faulty Mechon on the Arm. The two large Mechon, a design he hadn't seen before, alighted on the sand and began searching the area. His systems alerted him to the fact that he was being scanned down and he realised he would soon be spotted. He decided to jump down and meet them halfway. If they were functioning correctly, they might have answers for him.

As he approached them, he saw the slightly taller green-painted Mechon turn to the shorter, bulkier Mechon with the claws, point Daedala out to him and whisper something.  
"Serial number unknown! State your identity!" yelled the clawed Mechon in screeching, grating voice.

"I am Daedala, Prototype Mechon One," he replied, "I require assistance and information. I have become disconnected from the mainframe due to an incident, I do not know my location, and a malicious hacking attempt was recently made on me..."

"It is him! Get him!" screeched the clawed one. The green one drew a pair of laser rifles and began firing at Daedala, who instantly sprang out of the way and glided backwards until he was at a more comfortable range to start firing his laser cannon. The clawed Mechon ran at him screaming, his claws a whirlwind of slicing death. Daedala knew he wouldn't be able to keep either of them at range for long, and he could hear the whine of smaller jets as the small army of Mechon descended to join the fray. He was surrounded, heavily outnumbered and fighting his own allies, something he had no experience of. He could defeat all of the Mechon in theory, but he knew that a highly organised force with an advantage of numbers was far more dangerous than the sum of its parts. He prepared to retreat, although he didn't know where he would retreat to. These were fully functional Mechon, arriving from the direction of the Mechonis. It was possible that the Mechonis had intended its forces to attack him. If that was true, he had nowhere left to go.

Just as he had processed that thought, the sky darkened. His sensors told him that the temperature had noticeably dropped and there was an Ether reading off the scale somewhere above him, not far away. Then a terrible roar resounded, shaking boulders free from the cliffs and whipping up the sand, and the entire sky lit up with dark Ether energy. Most of the smaller Mechon were disintegrated, others fled without being given orders to. The two larger Mechon lost interest in Daedala and looked up at the sky, and the voice that boomed,

"You should run now. You have more important things to worry about back home..."


	3. Chapter 3

"The Ether readings coming off that thing..." whispered the green Mechon.

"It's preventing us from finishing our mission!" the clawed Mechon screamed, but he sounded uncertain in his bravado, like the animals Daedala had observed acting overly aggressive to hide their fear.

"Our orders were not to risk our lives. We're retreating. Now," said the green Mechon, before launching into the air and dashing off in the opposite direction to the winged reptile with dark purple scales that dwarfed all of them and seemed to blot out the moon. Its eyes, glinting with a deep darkness that Daedala could not look into for long, observed them until they were no longer within its field of view, then lost interest.

Daedala only just realised he had quite forgotten to retreat himself. He had been too fascinated with the impossibly powerful life form that he had never seen before, or even heard of. He had no idea whether it was native to the Bionis or Mechonis. He didn't understand if it was friendly or hostile. It had attacked his enemies, but that didn't mean it wasn't going to attack him as well. The threat didn't sound as though it was directed at him. He didn't think he had a home any more. He was a little worried that he would be destroyed if he moved without permission, and part of him wondered if this thing had any answers for him.

"You stay where you are, I've got some things to discuss with you," said a voice that he realised wasn't external, but was being broadcast directly into his audio playback circuits, "I'm glad I found you before those people did. I'm not sure if even that force could have defeated you, but it would have left you damaged, and Mechon repair is one of the areas we don't have all that many resources available to us yet."

"Projected outlook on the battle says low chance of victory," replied Daedala, "What did you have to discuss with me? You seem to have a lot of information for me, and my understanding of the situation requires urgent updating."

"Yes, you've been asleep for a long time," replied the stranger, still hovering in the same spot, his wings gently beating, "I've been watching you, out of the corner of one eye. I would have come the moment you awoke, but headquarters was suddenly attacked and Marcus was almost killed. Their power is growing too rapidly for my liking. I'm glad I found another of your caliber."

"We are allies?" asked Daedala, utterly confused.

"If you will accept your new destiny," he replied, his eyes boring into Daedala's optical circuits, "My name is Avalanche Abaasy. Elder Sage of the Order of Uniques."

"What is a Unique?" asked Daedala.

"You are a Unique," he replied, "And if you accept my offer and allow me to help you come to terms with your new existence, I will see that you are a promoted straight to a seat on the Council of Sages. Normally there would be several hundred years of service involved, but your circumstances are exceptional. Frankly, we desperately need someone in the higher eschelons who can act as an ambassador to the many Uniques we know to exist on the Mechonis. Another Sage who can fly would also be a great blessing. And as for any tests of loyalty or trials of ordeal, there will be many opportunities for such things in the future. The very near future."

"As for what a Unique actually is," continued Abaasy, "It is one who has qualities that cannot be replicated, and one that we will never see the like of again. One who has power far beyond anything that make them recognisable as one of their own kind. One who doesn't think the same as others of their species. And, because they are one of a kind, a Unique is alone. They no longer resemble the species they came from, even if they still wish to be a member of their community, and there is only one of the thing they became. Or, in the case of myself, only three of us ever existed in the world in the first place."

"A Mechon does not function like this. A Mechon is a unit in a highly efficient army."

"So is a Unique, we are just not an army of entities that are all the same, or are all in the same place. We have survived for thousands of years," he said, "And you are no longer a unit in the Mechon army. You are almost certainly no longer welcome on the Bionis. You haven't been for a long time. You attempted to make peace with the two Face Mechon, did you not? But they attacked you on sight. You probably don't even know what a Face Mechon is. They are your replacements. The Mechonis has forgotten that you ever existed. Even the spot where you were standing has been severed from the Mechonis' body, and its memory, and something new has regrown over both."

"I was recently sent a signal to reactivate..."

"By me," Abaasy said, "It took me a lot of effort and I was exhausted by the time I had to assist Marcus. I haven't used my powers on a native of the Mechonis before now. I had to invent a way to make the flow of ether fully compatible."

"You hacked me," said Daedala, "Did you tell me to attack the Machina, too?"

"I imagine that was Egil."

"Egil, the child of Miqol?"

"I understand your confusion. A lot has happened with the political situation on the Mechonis while you were asleep. I will overlook your accusations against me. I ask that you believe me when I tell you that you are no longer welcome on the Mechonis. You would be destroyed if you attempted to go there, and I would lose a Sage," he said.

"I am a reject?"

"You are an exile," said Abaasy, "The Machina who live here are also exiles. When the war between the Mechonis and the Bionis began, you were set to the task of protecting the evacuees as they fled. I was watching you. I was there to assist the Unique Mechon, but I was also watching you. You would not leave your post, even when the sword of the Bionis came down and you knew the arm would come off. The corpses of many Telethia littered your feet."

"I remember," said Daedala, "That is why I reacted so strongly to the order to attack the Machina. Miqol had told me that he did not want a prototype Mechon to be on the front lines. Vanea made a joke that I was being treated like a valuable antique, and that Miqol would put me on a shelf."

"You were not put on a shelf like a worthless luxury item. You protected the refugees. You are not only an exile, you are a leader of exiles."

"Then I should remain behind and protect them further."

"They aren't going to stay there for long anyway. They aren't hiding any more. I saw them rebuilding their craft so that it can fly. They are going to rejoin the war effort," explained Abaasy, "Your mission is over. I am giving you the option to find a new purpose, rather than simply wandering in exile. Once you are elevated to the power of a full Unique, you will be able to do a lot of things you wouldn't be able to do. You would even survive a return trip to the Mechonis."

"But I wouldn't be able to rejoin my people, or fulfil my function," said Daedala.

"The old life you want to return to isn't even there any more," said Abaasy, "But you can still help the remaining Uniques on the Mechonis. I know it isn't your concern, but I assure you, you are a Unique. If you come with me to Valak Mountain, where the Council of Sages gathers, I will muster all the Uniques. We will perform the Rite of Naming. Then you will feel it. You will understand."

"A Mechon cannot 'feel'," Daedala informed him, "Where is Valak Mountain?"

"On the Bionis, but you will not be attacked on sight," he added, seeing the Mechon reflectively go into a defensive stance, "Unlike the Mechonis, the Bionis does not know you, personally, exist, so it has no need to make an effort to hunt you down. But we will change that. After tonight, the whole Universe will know your name."

* * *

Daedala was indeed not attacked as he followed Abaasy through the sky towards the Bionis, apart from by two overambitious Moramoras who mistook him for food and a small party of invading Mechon. He was most worried he would run out of fuel on the long journey but his gauge didn't seem to even deplete. Abaasy's aura was visible, black with tinges of violet, as he continuously channelled incalculable amounts of Ether, and Daedala wondered if the dragon was manipulating his functions in some way with the same magic that had sent an activation signal without even needing any computer terminal.

This was Daedala's first look at the Bionis close up. Their destination was on the Bionis' right arm, close to the Titan's sword, where a battle on a smaller scale raged once again. On the peak of the mountain, the howling gales drowned out the sound of the fighting and the swirling, glittering shards of ice obscured the world below from view like a funereal veil. For a mortal, it was enough to think about not freezing to death, or falling off a sheer cliff face, or being eaten by one or another variety of large flying creature. Daedala was also worried about his jets freezing up or the ice clogging his vents, so he descended as quickly as possible to land on what his sensors told him was a small clearing. He landed in front of a door set into the side of the mountain, leading into an artificial cave. The door was well-made, carved with intricate designs, and had no obvious handle or lock, but looked as though it had quite a sophisticated locking mechanism that, from the residual traces of Ether around it, didn't just involve machinery. Ether streamed out in rivulets of fire across the clearing, spilling down the mountain like lava. Canals had been built, following the leylines as closely as possible. Daedala felt a little hyper-charged just looking at it all.

Preoccupied with examining the Ether network, he didn't notice that other people were in the clearing with him until he heard a deep voice clear their throat irritably, and another voice hiss at him with barely contained savagery. He looked up to see that he had been cornered by an enormous, hirsute humanoid and a murderous-looking rabbit with glowing eyes who sat on a sedan throne carried by a retinue of rabbit slaves. The tiny eyes bored into him, demanding that he justify his existence now lest he be relieved of it. He was about to open his mouth to explain the situation, when their heads turned to glance up at him, a look of awe on their faces that Daedala associated with sudden appearances by Meyneth. The focus of their worship – Abaasy – settled on a boulder and regarded the giant impassively.

"Abyssal One!" said the giant, "I was not expecting you back at this hour! I would have prepared a welcoming ceremony! Is this the guest you spoke of?" The dragon replied with a prolonged blink that Daedala guessed meant yes, whereupon the giant turned around, raised his arms and started bellowing at a spot directly behind the Mechon, "UNIQUES! The Dragon of the Abyss is in attendance! This Mechon is his honoured guest! He wishes us to join him in a most ancient and sacred rite!"

"Any who dishonour him go back down the cliff the fast-track way!" screeched the rabbit, licking his lips as though he relished the thought, "Don't think you get out of it if you can fly, I've got sharp teeth and I know where to bite!"

"That will not be necessary, Despot," rumbled an even deeper voice, one with a bestial quality to it. Daedala looked up and found the source of the voice curled on a boulder above him, a white-furred animal with wickedly sharp horns, teeth and claws, its powerful bulk twice the size of the humanoid giant. It looked half-asleep as it picked something out of its teeth with a hooked claw.

"I was only saying it so people wouldn't pick on him for being a Mechon!"

"Don't you keep up with the news any more? He's our new potential Sage. Nobody 'picks on' someone strong enough that Abaasy thinks they'd make a good Sage."

"If a combat demonstration is required, I am happy to comply," said Daedala.

"Don't encourage him," said the beast in a gruff tone, "I'm Blizzard Belzegaas, by the way. I'm a Behemoth. I don't know if the Dragon introduced us all, or talked about higher concepts we unworthy beings couldn't possibly comprehend instead. The bunny's Despotic Arsene..."

"His Radiant Majesty the God-Emperor Arsene of the Glorious Bunnit Regime," corrected the rabbit.

"Our Master of Ceremonies is Final Marcus. He'll talk you through the ritual. I'm just here as event security. Hope you had a nice flight in, anyway."

"Thank you," said Daedala. His sensors picked up other life forms all around him, not quite as blindingly powerful as the four on the peak but still stronger than the creatures he usually encountered. They milled around, trying to get a better view of whatever was happening above them. Realising that he had not introduced himself in return, he added, "I am Daedala, Prototype Mechon One."

"Has a Name been decided upon yet?" Marcus asked Abaasy. There was silence, some kind of wordless communication, then Marcus nodded and said, "Ah, I see. Daedala, have you decided whether or not you wish to join your fellow Uniques?"

Daedala replied, "I was told that you could help me return to the Mechonis, and that you would aid other Mechon who are in my position. You also seem to know a lot about the situation on the Mechonis at the moment. I will join you if you aid me in return."

"Being Named isn't simply an employment contract, Mechon," said Marcus, "Your Name is your new identity. It is your destiny. Your lifepath. That means you have to leave your old life behind. Do you understand?"

"He's a prototype. He doesn't have a destiny," said Arsene, grabbing a fig from a slave and devouring it messily.

"On the contrary, my original purpose has already been fulfiled," said Daedala, "I am a prototype. My product is in distribution. It now no longer resembles me, but not so much that I was deemed a failure. We were built for war, and we survived one and are fighting a second."

"If you're so useful, why were you discarded like a broken doll?" Arsene spat out the fig stone at the slave's head.

"Mechon are not built to last forever. We are not kept once we go beyond our shelf life," he said.

"You're not past your shelf life. You look like you could take Marcus' head off," commented the Bunnit, "A Unique is not an ant, to work to death for someone else and then go quietly to die in a corner. Go and surrender to the Homs if you want that. Or become one of my slaves. I could do with someone who won't keep dropping my chair."

"I will not count myself inoperative until I cease moving altogether, but I will not betray my people," said Daedala, "I was told you could help me save the remainder of them."

"Well, he doesn't consider the idiots who are trying to get both worlds destroyed to be his people, or he'd just leave them to it. That's one thing, at least," replied the Bunnit, "If he wants to save Unique Mechon, I say, take advantage of the extra hands on deck. If he proves loyal to us, and he wants to join us after the battle ends, he can join us. If not, we can always ditch him while we're still on the Mechonis and watch him get torn apart by his own kind."

"Tactfully put as always," said Marcus, "And don't forget that we have to prove our own worth as allies to him. If we help you save your people, will you at least consider joining us?"

"For what reason do you wish me to join you?" asked Daedala, "Are you simply another faction fighting this war? Or do you collect Uniques? This seems no different to existing only as a valuable piece of legacy technology."

"You don't understand anything, do you? Time is running out for us, too," said Arsene, picking fleas out of his ear, "It's running out for the entire Universe. We consider ourselves a separate species, and we're not going extinct without a fight. Those other idiots are just speeding their demise, but at least we've got a semblance of a sensible plan."

"Don't insult Abaasy's plan, Arsene, I've warned you about angering Abaasy before," said Belzegaas, "Look at you, Daedala, you don't look anything like a Mechon, you're not wired to a Mechon mainframe and other Mechon attack you on sight. If you decide that you're the original and true Mechon and the new brand is going against design specifications, we'll respect that decision and aid you in that fight. Or if you decide that you're not a Mechon, we'll help you fight for your right to be free of the Mechonis' influence. But you have to make the decision soon, and you do need a new identity of some kind. This trip to the Mechonis – it can be your last if you wish – is going to be your opportunity to do so. As well as to aid the people involved in this war that nobody else will help. So, are you with us?"

Daedala thought about this for a short while, then his optical sensors blinked green and whirred in the Mechon noise for affirmation.


	4. Chapter 4

After the meeting was over, Belzegaas and Arsene began dividing the Uniques into those who would accompany Abaasy and Daedala on the aerial strike mission and those who would remain behind to defend their territory on the Bionis. Most of the flying Uniques volunteered for the mission, led by Illustrious Golteus, although a few of the non-flying Uniques managed to convince their flying friends to give them lifts in their talons or in Nopon baskets, and Unreliable Rezno was forbidden from joining them because of the concerns that he might accidentally fly right into one of the Bionis' cooling fans. They were divided into ranks based on their power levels and species while Belzegaas went over the plan with them all again.

They were going to wait for the next scheduled attack by the allied armies of the Bionis on Sword Valley (Arsene's spy network had been busy), so that the majority of the Mechon would be distracted, then sneak around the back of the Mechonis and through a service hatch that led into the Central Factory, where the majority of the Unique Mechon lived. One party would then ride the elevator up to Agniratha while the other used the communications systems in the factory to get a message down to the Mechonis Field and Galahad Fortress, to give them the address of a safe sanctuary for Mechon that had been cleared out in the areas of the Ether Mine that couldn't be accessed by humans. It would be a matter of doing as much good as they could within the time limit, and getting a clear communication across, and hoping nobody alerted the main forces.

Upon Arsene's signal, the Unique aerial division lifted off from Three Sage Peak. Marcus waved at them and wished them good luck, then his Gloria Sloboses helped him shoo the rest of the crowd off the mountain top. The small army of assorted flying creatures made their way up to the clouds until the golden streams of ether that laced Valak Mountain looked like twinkling lights in a busy cityscape. Eventually, the Bionis looked almost small enough for Abaasy to eat it if he tried really hard, and the Mechonis loomed into view. It was moving. Only once in Daedala's entire existence did he remember seeing the Bionis move. As it moved, an outcry went up from the armies in Sword Valley, so far away that they looked like milling ants or swarming flies, but the panic still audible. A lot of people on either side moved too slowly and plunged to their deaths. Some of the Homs and Mechon tried to retreat to their own lines, others tried to press the advantage, all of them ran in some direction, desperate to get out of the battlefield that had moved away from under them. All semblance of an organised plan had been flung away, and if they weren't entirely different life forms, it would have been impossible to tell which side was which. Already, Daedala could tell how much had gone wrong since he left.

Only a few scout patrols challenged them as they wheeled around to the back of the Bionis. The small scout Mechon were quickly dispatched by a unit of Nebulae led by Inferno Heinrich before they could raise the alarm. Abaasy led them to a service hatch near the Mechonis' left armpit. It was harder to direct everyone through it than he expected, as they were trying to lock on to a moving target and the hatch doors had been closed slightly to stop dust getting in, making them too small for Abaasy to fit through. Eventually everyone was crammed inside and they followed the pipes down to Central Factory. The Factory was much busier than Daedala remembered it, the clanging and whirring almost overloading his audio receptors, the production lines churning out Mechon so that they could be replaced by an entire unit more, the second one of them fell in battle. It took Abaasy a few moments to locate the first Unique, a harassed-looking industrial Mechon called 'Synchronised Gaheris'. She was small and could fly, so Abaasy told her to zip around the Factory and fetch the others.

"Majestic Mordred might be a while, there were dangerous intruders," she commented, "Apart from you lot, I mean."

"I have a good idea who they are," said Abaasy.

"You do?" asked Daedala.

"I probably should have warned you about them before, but it isn't something I like discussing with those who aren't properly sworn in. They are... very dangerous enemies," said Abaasy, "Would you be okay with using the internal communications, or do you wish to go up to Agniratha? You would be more effective at manipulating the systems than me, but I understand if you want to go and see what has happened to Agniratha. It isn't pleasant, though."

"I will be recognised by the security systems if I use the terminals," said Daedala, "Also, I know my way around Agniratha. If you give me descriptions of the Uniques and their roaming grounds, I will easily find them."

Abaasy ordered some of the Uniques to follow Daedala and the ancient Mechon sped off towards the elevator. A vicious battle had taken place in the corridor leading up to the elevator. Four maintenance Mechon were straining to lift the armour plating of what must have been an enormous war Mechon, possibly a Face. They ignored him as he led the Unique force down the corridor and into the elevator. As it rose silently, his destination came into view through the glass panels. Agniratha was deserted. Telethia corpses littered a ravaged landscape of collapsed walkways and piles of metal debris, still telling the tale of the horrors of the first war. Maintenance and Security Mechon swarmed over the ruins, looking for salvage or signs that their enemies still lived. They had already cleared away all the Machina corpses. Incoming signals told him that the central plaza was still intact, broadcasting requests for information, demanding to know when the repairs would be complete and reminding him that the market was still open for the traders that would usually have arrived by now. The system identified him as soon as he walked up to it. Egil hadn't reprogrammed it yet, so it demanded to know why he wasn't dealing with the multiple security violations and maintenance concerns that had been flagged up. He asked it to stop broadcasting his whereabouts until further notice, for security reasons, and to identify unusual elite Mechon in the area for him. Searching its data banks, it soon found matches to all the individuals he looking for. He uploaded the information and set off to look for the closest one.

"Sentimental Flamral?" Daedala called out, hovering up to the first floor, "Is there a Sentimental Flamral here?"

After a few minutes, a large insectoid Mechon with giant pincers scuttled from behind a pile of wreckage, "Daedala? That you? Man, it's been a long time!"

"Flamral, I need you to help me locate all the Uniques..."

"You're into the Unique business now?"

"I am the head of the Mechonis division."

"The big guy still trying to get everyone to leave? Tell him I like it here."

"The Mechonis is no longer a safe place for anyone."

"We Mechon ain't meant to be in safe places!"

"Needless involvement in situations that are likely to cause our deaths is highly irrational."

"It's our home! That don't mean anything to ya?"

"This is a ruin, not a home. Our people are scattered. We are exiles."

"Well, I'll ask the others, but you ain't gettin' anything out of..."

Suddenly, the ground jolted violently, a tremor that sent Flamral clattering across the floor. Seconds later, Daedala heard Abaasy's voice in his head.

"Leave now. Bring everyone you've located, don't try and search for any more. It's an emergency."

"What is making the ground shake? Is the Bionis moving faster?"

"Worse than that. You need to leave now or you're all going to die."

* * *

Alarm sirens went off in all directions. The tremors became more violent, so that the more mobile Mechon had to grab those who kept falling over and half-lift, half-drag them over the wreckage. Behind them, the tattered foundations of Agniratha had begun to crumble. One unfortunate Mechon was hit by a girder but the heavily armoured Unique survived with only a few dents. Soon it became difficult for even the flying Mechon to keep their balance. As he passed a status terminal, Daedala saw that it was reporting critical damage status for the Bionis structure itself. It must have been targeted in the battle, he thought, are the two Titans going to fight each other directly again?

The Agniratha division rejoined the Factory division and they set about fitting people back through the hatch, now an even more difficult job. Several of the Uniques had gone missing, some of them trying to go further than they could quite get back. Gaheris had picked up a clipboard and was darting around, yelling out people's names.

"What is happening," Daedala demanded of Abaasy as the dragon stared at the main view screen of the communications system. He was watching a small unit of Nebulae who had somehow gotten all the way to the Mechonis Field. At Daedala's approach, he switched the view to the Mechonis Core. Daedala had only been to the Mechonis Core once, when he had been introduced to Meyneth. Egil was wired to the Core now. He was slumped down onto the console in a pool of blood, and as the view zoomed in, Daedala soon realised that he was dead. Standing over him with a sword that he recognised as the Monado was a young male Homs.

"That is Shulk," said Abaasy, "The leader of our greatest enemy. The people who have been deliberately and specifically training to kill us. This is what he is already capable of. When you are made a Sage, you will be taught to defend yourself against Shulk's party, as you will inevitably be targeted by them."

"The Mechonis cannot function if its operator is slain," said Daedala, "Many of the Mechon will be burnt out just from the feedback of the improper shutdown. If the Core controls are damaged..."

"The Mechonis cannot be saved," replied Abaasy. "This is why we are evacuating people."

"We will not be able to save enough," said Daedala, before running towards the hatch and jumping through it. Abaasy didn't try to stop him, but watched him on the view screen as he hovered up to the Mechonis' head, from which smoke was now pouring, and jumped in through one of the grilles on its face.

"Come back alive," ordered the dragon, then he turned around and led his force away from the Mechonis.


	5. Chapter 5

For a second time, Daedala picked himself up from the same spot in the sand and waited for his self-repair systems to go online.

Data flooded his processor at a speed and volume that threatened to burn him out. The data was older and a deeper level of the system than he was supposed to handle. It felt forbidden, and he could only barely understand the information, as though he were reading the elevated thoughts of Meyneth herself. At first he instinctively pushed them back into a safer part of his thoughts, wondering if there was a security leak, then his memory salvaged a picture of what had happened last night.

He had flown up to the Mechonis Core just as the Homs called Shulk and his party had left. Another Homs had been in an argument with them and someone had shot Shulk, so they were retreating. He waited for them to leave, then attempted to wire himself into the Core and restart the programming of the Bionis by himself. He was the only thing left on the Bionis still old and powerful enough to even try. He remembered waves of pain, an unending stream of dark, primal code, the unfiltered thoughts of entire worlds, dreaming worlds furious at being roused from sleep, then he remembered knowing that his circuits were shorting out but being unable to detach himself, or maybe still wanting to try and keep going for one more second. He remembered knowing that he had failed but still being unable to detach himself as the Bionis was falling, and he was falling with it. He remembered expecting to be destroyed. Finally, he remembered, another mind, a signal keeping him alive.

And now he was here on the Fallen Arm again. It was fitting for him to be here. In a way, he was another severed limb of the Mechonis. Anyone who touched the Mechonis Core, who went that close to the essence of what the Mechonis was, tended to become a part of the machine. It was the last part of the Mechonis to remain the same as it had been, a land preserved, like the mind of an exile who has nothing left but nostalgia. And he was a permanent exile now. Even if he wanted to go back, even if he could find another opportunity to do so without being killed on sight, there was nowhere for him to return to.

"Look at the size of that Mechon!" cried out a voice. Daedala turned on his scanners so that he could observe them without looking as though he had already noticed them. He had already identified the voices as Shulk and his party. They had recovered quickly – unless it was Daedala who had lost more time than he first realised. The one with the loud voice was the large, heavily armoured Homs. He could also hear Shulk himself and the female medic.

"I haven't seen one that looked like that before. I think it's an older model," said Shulk.

"I'm getting some... nonsensically high power readings from it. Like that Bunnit we found that almost killed us all. I think we should avoid it for now."

"Maybe it's not quite as bad as the Bunnit!" said the large Homs, "At least we'll be able to hit something that size!"

"If there was a Mechon that size, you'd think we'd have heard about it before now," said Shulk, "I'd have thought Egil would try and send it after us."

"Maybe it's been abandoned."

"Why would you abandon a weapon that powerful if it could still walk around and shoot things?""

"It's beside the point now," said the medic, "And I'm worried about this new trend of these powerful monsters appearing from nowhere. I still say we should get out of here."

"We come back after we've trained some more," insisted the large Homs. The medic agreed, then they wandered off again, leaving Daedala alone to ponder his fate some more.

So that is the great enemy of the Unique collective, he thought. They could slay Gods, but they didn't even know what they were fighting against half the time. Daedala had to admit that he still wasn't clear on the subtleties of what it meant to be a Unique, or a Sage. When he returned to Three Sage Peak, he was sure someone would tell him all about it. It was the only logical decision left. He had nothing left to do on this island but watch his parts wear out, unless the world ended in the next five minutes. Gods were fighting and killing each other, so the future wasn't assured any more. He owed Abaasy for keeping him alive twice now, and for rescuing his people, and he owed his people for failing to keep their home alive. He wanted Shulk to die, so he would not threaten any more of his people. Most of all, he wanted the power to succeed next time.

The name chosen for him at his Naming Ceremony was 'Ancient Daedala', out of respect for his lifespan being the longest of any surviving Mechon and the third longest of any Unique. He was considered a hero among the rescued Unique Mechon, so attendance at the ceremony was high and it grew quite rowdy until Belzegaas ate someone as a warning to the others. During the ritual, the power that surged through Daedala as the Ether channeled through the mountains was briefly collected in the centre of the ritual circle, and he briefly understood the Mechonis control script still dormant in his head. Although he couldn't use it ('yet', remarked Abaasy) the effect on his mind was that of something approaching spiritual rapture. From then on, he was viewed as a personal God by the Unique Mechon, who kept bringing shiny things for him out of the Ether Mine, despite Abaasy's initial intention of concealing their existence. Daedala had to take breaks from his regular patrol and many, many Sage business meetings to assassinate non-Mechons who had spotted the secret entrances to the Mines. The knowledge in his head caused him no problems until the unfortunate incident when Shulk asked Fiora to lead an expedition to go and see if they were ready to fight the giant overpowered Mechon yet.


End file.
